This chapter discusses two factors that tend to increase motor
vehicle travel demand: the prestige and pleasure that many people associated
with vehicle ownership, vehicle travel, sprawl and distant holidays. It
discusses their implications for transportation and TDM planning.

Prestige Value

Prestige (also called status and position)
refers to a person’s social rank. Many goods and services have prestige
value, that is, they increase the status of consumers who own or use them.
These are called prestige (or status, or positional) goods.
Jewelry and fashionable clothing, luxurious homes and cars, and extravagant
entertainment are examples of these prestige goods. A conceptual test of
prestige value is to ask, “Would I choose this particular good if nobody else
knew that I owned or used it, or if it became unfashionable?”

From an individual’s perspective, prestige is of great
importance, establishing personal dignity, pride and self-esteem, and social
status. For example, having a prestigious vehicle often increases a person’s
social popularity, and professionals may earn more if they drive a prestigious
car because it indicates success. Conversely, if walking, cycling or public
transit travel are not respected people will resist using these modes even if
they are efficient and functional.

With increased material wealth and expanded market options,
the image of a good or service has become as important as its functional value.
Certain objects and brands represent security, vitality, responsibility and
health. For example, urban residents who almost never drive offroad purchase an
SUV as a way to express their identity and personal fantasies of being a
rugged, adventurous individual, or because they are convinced by advertising
that it is safer than other vehicles. Similarly, some people choose a suburban
location because it is considered prestigious, not because they actually enjoy
working in their garden.

Few goods only provide prestige value. Prestige is usually
an additional feature of functional goods and services. For example, vehicle
purchasers often pay extra for features such as high potential speeds and
offroad abilities that they never intend to use, for prestige value. Similarly,
people may choose a more exotic holiday destination because it sounds
impressive, although they remain within their resort and never actually
experience the unique location. The extra vehicle costs and travel expenses can
be considered the prestige value.

Prestige value is relative. For example, in some
communities, where vehicle ownership is low, owning any type of automobile
provides a high level of prestige, but in communities where automobile
ownership is common, a particular type of vehicle, usually an expensive type,
is needed for prestige. As society becomes wealthier, the standards and costs
of prestige goods continually increase.

Prestige value provides little or no net benefit, because
increased status to one person reduces status to others. Prestige value is an
economic transfer, not a net economic gain (sometimes called a zero sum game
or social trap, because gains to one person are offset by losses to
somebody else). For example, if a young man purchases a particularly
prestigious car, he gains popularity compared with his peers, but this raises
the standard for the type of vehicle that other young men must own for equal
status and popularity.

It is important to differentiate between functional and
prestige values in economic analysis, because increased functional value
benefits society but increased prestige value does not. It represents a form of
inflation, which raises everybody’s costs without increasing overall welfare.

Optimal Wealth – If
You’re So Rich, Why Aren’t You Happy?

When people are
impoverished, increased material wealth can provide significant benefits and
increased happiness. But once people’s basic material needs for food, housing
and health care are met, additional wealth provides much less benefit.

Consider the growth in
productivity and material wealth that has occurred during the last century.
You would think that this progress would make people substantially better
off, but happiness seems elusive. Many people complain about the poor quality
of their lives: excessive job and financial stress, long work hours, a lack
of leisure time…you’d think that we are worse off than our grandparents. What
has gone wrong? Here are some explanations:

·Some of the increased production is partly offset by increased
overhead costs. Higher productivity requires more education and equipment.

·A portion of increased wealth is offset by increased external
costs, such as congestion and illnesses.

·Increased wealth raises the standard of consumption required
for prestige. Consumers are no longer content to have simple homes, clothes
and holidays: they feel the need to own impressive houses, fashionable
clothes, exotic vacations, and expensive automobiles. This competition for
material status makes it difficult to be content.

As a result of these
factors, a large increase in material wealth may provide only a modest
increase in health and happiness. Once basic material needs have been met,
increased wealth usually provides diminishing benefits.

Research by Currie and Delbose (2010) investigated how
factors related to transport disadvantage (such as physical and economic
constraints on people’s mobility) and social exclusion (such as
unemployment and poverty) affect people’s wellbeing, measured using responses
to life satisfaction surveys. They found that being transport disadvantaged is
positively associated with social exclusion, and social exclusion tends to
reduce well-being. However, both highly-mobile and transport disadvantaged
people experience time poverty (stress due to excessive commitments)
which tends to reduce well-being. This suggests that increased vehicle travel
may provide little increase in wellbeing if either the extra speed is used to
travel longer distances rather than to reduce total travel time, or if
motorists must work longer hours to afford a car, leading to time poverty.

The Costs of Chauffeuring

Chauffeuring refers to additional vehicle travel required to
carry a passenger, in contrast to a rideshare tripin which a passenger is carried in an otherwise empty seat in a vehicle
that would be making a trip anyway, and so does not increase vehicle travel.
In automobile-dependent conditions non-drivers often require significant
amounts of chauffeuring: children driven to and from school, recreational and
social activities; people with disabilities driven to medical appointments
and shopping; and out-of-town visitors being chauffeured to and from airports
or train stations, and to various activities.

Chauffeured travel is
inefficient. It requires drivers’ time, increases vehicle travel (chauffeured
trips often require an empty backhaul, so transporting a passenger 5 miles
generates 10 miles of vehicle travel), and deprives passengers of
independence.

People sometimes value
chauffeuring as an opportunity to socialize, such as a time when parents can
talk with their children, but it can also generate stress and conflict, such
as when a driver must interrupt an important activity to fulfill chauffeuring
obligations, or when a passenger or driver misses a scheduled connection.
Parents often complain about the time poverty and stress of chauffeuring, and
seniors with declining ability are often reluctant to giving up driving
because they do not want to lose their independence or burden others for
rides. Studies indicate that both time poverty and reduced independence tend
to reduce people senses of wellbeing and happiness (Curie and Delbose 2010).

A diverse transport system
with efficient non-automobile transport options (walking, cycling, public
transit, taxi services, and telecommunications), can reduce the need for
chauffeuring. More accessible land use, which minimizes travel distances,
increases the portion of trips that can be made by walking, cycling and taxi.
Transit-oriented development, with appropriate housing located in
transit-rich areas can significantly reduce the need for chauffeuring.

Travel As A Pleasure Activity

Mobility is usually considered a derived demand, that
is, people travel to achieve other goals such as getting to work, shopping,
visiting somebody, or distributing goods. Even recreational trips usually have
a destination, such as a park or resort. Transportation planning is usually
based on the assumption that time spent in travel is a cost and travel time
savings are a benefit (Transportation Costs).

However, there are many indications that people consider a
certain amount of mobility to be enjoyable, and will make additional trips if
necessary to experience it (Mokhtarian and Salomon, 2001; Mokhtarian, 2005;
Diana, 2005). On average, people seems to travel about 1 hour a day, and
consider a 10-20 minute commute trip acceptable or even desirable, as a time to
think and relax, and a way to separate home and work life. As a result,
per-minute travel time costs may be small for short trips, and increase for
longer trips (those greater than 20 minutes).

Travel facilitates discovery, that is, it helps
people explore the world and themselves. This can occur at many levels, people
walking or bicycling on local streets to explore their neighborhood, traveling
across town to try a new restaurant or store, or traveling account the world to
experience a different culture and to explore their response to that
experience. People often walk, jog, bicycle, motorcycle, drive, and take trips
by train, boat or airplane for the sheer enjoyment of the activity, with no
destination, or a destination of minimal importance that is mainly an excuse
for the trip. Such trips probably represents a minor, but not insignificant
portion of total travel. An even larger share of transport decisions are
probably influenced by positive feelings people have about mobility. For
example, people may choose to drive alone rather than use a cheaper mode,
accept a longer commute, or be willing to take a non-essential business trip
because they enjoy the travel.

The pleasure and displeasure provided by transportation
varies from one person and situation to another. For example, some people enjoy
driving, others do not, and a particular person may enjoy driving short trips
or under rural travel conditions, but dislike automobile commuting under congested
conditions (Wener, Evans and Boatley 2004). To the degree that transportation
systems offer viable options (such as both automobile and quality transit
services) people can select the mode that provides the greatest benefits and
pleasure for a particular trip.

Consumer travel preferences appear to be shifting away from
automobile travel. According to a 2006 survey of 1,048 drivers, 69% say they
enjoy driving their automobiles, down from 79% in 1991 (MSN 2006). Although
most motorists are unlikely to give up driving altogether, many were prefer to
drive somewhat less then they do now and rely more on alternatives, provided
that they are convenient, safe, affordable and prestigious.

Influence on Transportation Activities

Transportation activities are influenced in various ways by
prestige and pleasure values.

Motor Vehicle Ownership

Motor vehicles, including
automobiles, motorcycles, airplanes and motorboats, are major prestige goods,
and many people make a hobby out of owning, fixing and maintaining motor
vehicles. This motivates consumers to purchase more vehicles, more expensive
vehicles, and vehicles with more features, than they otherwise would.

Motorized Travel

Motor vehicle travel is
considered prestigious and enjoyable, and use of other modes such as walking,
cycling, ridesharing and transit, are often stigmatized. As a result, people
will sometimes drive just for the pleasure, and forego use of alternative modes
that are otherwise equal or superior in terms of their consumer attributes.

Sprawl

Demand for low-density, urban
fringe home location result, in part, from the prestige that people feel from
newer homes and larger gardens, and the stigma associated with older, urban
neighborhoods (Land Use Evaluation).

Long-distant Recreation Travel

Demand for long-distance holiday
trips results, in part, from the prestige associated with exotic destinations.
As international travel becomes more common, more travel is needed for a trip
to be considered “special,” and people may choose long-distance holiday trips
to foreign countries, even though they stay in a secluded resort and have no
interaction with local people or culture.

Preference for Air and Rail

Air travel tends to be considered
more prestigious than rail, and rail travel tends to be considered more
prestigious than bus transport. This results in policies and investments that
favor air and rail transport, and underinvestment and underuse of bus
transportation.

Because people use travel to compete for prestige, travel
demand is virtually unlimited. If regional travel becomes faster and cheaper,
people will extend their commute ever farther in order to have a home at the
urban fringe. If international travel were sufficiently cheap, parents might
have birthday parties in far off lands, even for children too young to
appreciate the experience, simply to make it a “special” event. If
interplanetary travel were sufficiently cheap, an earth-bound holiday might be
considered dull. Each increase in mobility diminishes the prestige value of
shorter trips and closer destinations.

Implications for Planning

Prestige and pleasure values have significant implications
for transportation and land use planning. They mean that travel demand is
virtually unlimited, and that motor vehicle travel and associated costs may
increase without making people better off overall. Trying to satisfy such
demand tends to be a bad investment: it induces additional travel, increases
external costs, and provide little or no net benefits to consumers.

Of course, this increased motor vehicle ownership and travel
may provide indirect benefits by supporting particular industries and
innovations. However, money spent on automobiles and fuel provides relatively
little business activity and employment in most areas (Economic
Development). There is no clear justification for favoring prestige goods
over other types of consumer expenditures.

Although it is difficult to measure the total economic
effects of positional goods and the externalities they produce, the direction
of these impacts is clear: They erode the net welfare gain of increased vehicle
use and may result in net losses, particularly in wealthier communities where
consumers’ basic transportation and housing needs are fulfilled.

That transportation demand is virtually unlimited, and
increased mobility may provide little net benefits to consumers increases the
importance of applying Market Principles that avoid
underpricing driving or biasing planning decisions in favor of motorized travel
and sprawl.

This also emphasizes the importance of differentiating
between basic, functional needs (for example, for food, housing, health care
and economic opportunities), and luxury consumption. Basic
Accessibility reflects the importance to society of providing
transportation that allows people to meet their basic functional needs. This
suggests that transportation and land use planning should manage travel
resources such as roads and parking facilities to give priority to Basic Access
trips and destinations.

Although automobiles are a prestige good (they can even be
considered a fetish item to some people), this does not mean that
transportation demand management is futile. Even people who love their cars can
be convinced to use alternatives, given suitable opportunities and incentives.
For example, many automobile enthusiasts also enjoy walking and cycling, and
it common in some communities for upper-income people who own valuable cars to
commute by transit (particularly rail transit) if it has suitable speed and
comfort. Some people who own a unique vehicle and love to drive may prefer to
use alternatives for mundane commuting in order to better enjoy driving during
off-peak periods. That automobile ownership and use results, in part, from
“irrational” consumer preferences means that there is a significant amount of
discretionary vehicle travel that may be reduced with suitable incentives and
marketing efforts, just as recycling promotion and smoking reduction programs
have proven effective, at least for some groups.

An understanding of prestige value and the pleasure people
derive from travel can be used to support transportation and land use
objectives. For example, TDM
Marketing can identify consumer transportation and neighborhood
preferences, and this information can be used to help improve the prestige of
alternative modes or more accessible locations. People sometimes assume that
reducing automobile travel requires significant personal sacrifice, but this is
not necessarily true to the degree that automobile travel results from
prestige. Consumer might reduce their and be better off overall, if they could
take more pride in walking, cycling, ridesharing, transit, and more accessible
neighborhoods. In fact, current consumer trends are toward such values, at
least in some communities, which suggests that there is considerable potential
for social marketing to support TDM.

Shifting Gears: The Joy of (Not Always)
Driving

Since you’re reading this
magazine, I’m going to make a giant leap of logic and assume that you love
cars and you enjoy driving.

Not for you the notion of a
motor vehicle as merely an appliance or “a tool, personal transportation, for
the use of.” Cars, to you, are intrinsically interesting. Driving is an act
of emotion, not mere motion.

That being the case, I have
a proposal that may shock you.

Drive less.

Am I nuts? The editor of a
car magazine telling people to cut back on the driving? No, I’m serious: if
you’re serious about how much you like to drive, do it less.

What this planet needs more
than anything is fewer cars on the road. We need fewer cars crashing into
each other, cleaner air in our cities, less carbon dioxide heating up the
planet. We need to reduce our dependence on the foreign sources of oil over
which future wars may be fought.

At the same time, what we
of the auto-enthusiast persuasion need is more quality in our driving, not
quantity.

Put these two needs
together and what we have is an opportunity for enlightened self-interest. If
we’re going to benefit from reduced traffic, we who like to drive will have
to do our part. But there are personal spin-off benefits from leaving the car
at home, say, one or two days a week. And on the days we do drive, we’ll
enjoy it that much more.

On many of North America’s busiest highways, traffic already grinds along so slowly that it would be
literally faster to ride a bike to work. How much longer before walking
becomes the faster alternative?

It’s not an issue only of
journey times. The greater the traffic congestion, the nastier the driving
experience becomes. The fact that you have zero opportunity to enjoy your
car’s scalpel-sharp steering and spine crushing acceleration is the least of
it. Stop and go driving is tedious, frustrating and mentally draining. Hell
on your car, too.

Worse, you’re trapped in
the company of people behaving badly. The heavier the congestion, the worse
the behaviour. I don’t know about you, but I normally go a long way to avoid
being near aggressive, selfish, boorish people who get what they want by
pushing and shoving.

Don’t think you’re exempt
if you’re the one who’s behaving badly. What do you think is happening to
your stress levels, to your heart rate, every time you cut off another driver
so that maybe you can get home seven tenths of a second earlier than if you
had stayed in the other lane? Of course, if that’ s the way you drive the
chances are you’re also blowing a wad every year in traffic tickets and
inflated insurance premiums.

Let’s face it, this whole
concept of personal mobility that the automobile represents is a wondrous
privilege and luxury that we abuse and misuse shamefully. And I don’t mean
misuse in the sense of driving badly, though Lord knows there’s enough of
that going around. I mean it in the sense of driving inappropriately; driving
when you really should not be driving.

Last Saturday night - a
warm, dry night in early May - a neighbour invited us to their house party.
My wife and I walked the entire 150 metres to get there. Two other guests,
each of whom lives less than 300 metres from the venue, drove to the party.

C’mon folks, this is not
OK!

Another example. Go to any
mall, and even in the nicest of weather you will see drivers circling around
looking for parking as close as possible to the mall entrance. Sometimes
people even get into fights over empty parking spots. Meanwhile, maybe 100
metres further away, there’s acres of empty parking. People spend five
minutes burning gas and spewing emissions so they can save themselves a
one-minute walk.

Then there are all those
rugged, outdoorsy SUV drivers. Have you noticed how it always seems to be
SUVs parked illegally in the fire lane right outside the mall entrance
because their “active-lifestyle” (pah!) drivers are too lazy to walk 50 or
100 metres from a legitimate parking spot?

Or how about this for the
height of absurdity? Suppose we need a to pick up carton of milk or rent a
movie. We put on our $200 “athletic” shoes, brush past the bicycle in the
garage to get into the car, and drive to the plaza 0.9 kilometres away. If we
think about it at all, maybe we justify it to ourselves in terms of time
saved.

But then, maybe later that
same day, we get into the car again and drive a few kilometres to the fitness
club, for which we pay hundreds of dollars a year in membership. There, we
spend the next hour or two doing totally artificial exercise on a bicycle or
a treadmill going absolutely nowhere. And on the way home afterwards we stop
to fill up our tank and bitch about the price of gasoline.

Now you tell me who’s nuts.

(Here’s a thought: imagine
how much energy could be saved and pollution avoided if every exercise
machine in every gym was hooked up to a generator that fed electricity back
into the hydro grid. Remember, you read it here first). [Bodzin replies: I’ve
looked into this, and it wouldn’t even produce enough electricity to power
the lights, cash registers, computers, and sound system in the gym. Human
locomotion is so low-energy, it’s on a totally different scale from the
vehicle and electric-grid world we get used to.]

Quite aside from oil
crunches and global warming, there’s another crisis facing our western
lifestyles: growing levels of obesity and declining physical fitness. Surveys
show that not only are we getting fatter, so are our kids.

Could there be a connection
between the obesity epidemic, dirty air, global warming ... and the number of
mothers I see every morning chauffeuring their 1.7 children to neighbourhood
schools in nine-seater Chevrolet Suburbans? D’ya think?

TDM Opportunities

Transportation Demand Management can help offset the
negative impacts of prestige and pleasure value of automobile travel.

Transportation and Market Reforms

Motor Vehicle Ownership

Carsharing
can help reduce the need for automobile ownership. It may be marketed as a way
for consumers to drive more prestigious vehicles than they could otherwise
afford, and enjoy their driving more, because they have wider choices and fewer
responsibilities.

Motorized Travel

TDM Marketing,
Nonmotorized Encouragement, Transit
Improvements, Ridesharing, and other types of TDM
programs can help make alternative modes more respected, attractive and
enjoyable to consumers. Enjoyment of mobility is not limited to automobile
travel, the same impulse that motivates people to cruise in their car can be
shifted to walking or cycling, provided that they have facilities and respect
that makes these activities pleasurable.

Sprawl

Smart Growth
and New Urbanism can respond to consumer preferences,
and be marketed as ways to redevelop communities so they are more attractive,
prestigious and enjoyable places to live and visit.

Preference for Air and Rail

Since prestige and pleasure values influence transportation
decisions, it is important to be sensitive to them for TDM. This means that a
marketing perspective may be equally important as a transportation engineering
perspective. For example, it may be insufficient to provide safe, affordable
and fast transit service, it may be equally important to insure that the
service is comfortable, aesthetically pleasing, fun and promoted as socially
acceptable to middle-class consumers. To be effective, TDM programs must
respond to consumer expectations and preferences.

Some people may be skeptical that TDM strategies are
feasible, because they require consumers to change their attitudes and habits.
But there are many indications that consumers are willing to make such changes,
and that such programs can be successful, including programs and policies that
have increased recycling, reduced smoking and increased seat belt use. In each
case, a combination of public education, policy changes and support services
have had a dramatic impact on people’s attitudes and behavior patterns,
indicating that consumers can support such changes both politically and
individually.

A man walks into a bar
wearing a stylish suit, a barrette on his head, and on his shoulder a
colorful parrot with magnificent tail feathers. In a thick French accent the
man orders a glass of the finest imported French wine.

The bartender, admiring the
beautiful bird says, “Wow, that’s really neat. Where did you get him?”

To which the parrot
replies, “In France. They’ve got millions of ‘em over there!”

Richard Wener, Gary W. Evans and Pier Boately (2005),
“Commuting Stress: Psychophysiological Effects of the Trip and Spillover Into
the Workplace,” Transportation Research Record 1924, Transportation
Research Board (www.trb.org), pp. 112-117.
Also see Richard Wener, Gary W. Evans and Jerome Lutin (2006), Leave The
Driving To Them: Comparing Stress Of Car And Train Commuters, American
Public Transportation Association (www.apta.com/passenger_transport/thisweek/documents/driving_stress.pdf).

This Encyclopedia is
produced by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute to help improve
understanding of Transportation Demand Management. It is an ongoing project.
Please send us your comments and suggestions for improvement.